Between therapy, not sleeping well last night (I was actually in bed on time for once, I just couldn’t fall asleep and then I kept waking up throughout the night), and the general events of the last two weeks, I just do not have the energy for much today. I finished Sea of Stars and want to write about it, but the thought of even starting on that post (by copying over the relevant bits of a discussion I had with someone about the game) have me feeling so exhausted that I’d rather lay down on the dirty floor of my office and not move for a week than try to parse through all the pieces of that largely one-sided discussion (my mistake for engaging with someone without checking if they were up for in-depth critical analysis). I mean, hell, I can’t decide what I’m doing to do for dinner and tonight’s grocery night, which means I could guiltlessly cop out by ordering Chinese food from the local place since I’ll be getting home late. Nothing like buying a bunch of food and then not eating any of it. Sure, it’s because I’m exhausted from a long day of work and then going grocery shopping afterwards, but it still feels weird to do. Plus, as much as I enjoy getting takeout from the local Chinese restaurant, I tend not sleep as well after eating it. Seems like eating something else might be the better choice in order to address my exhaustion, but that will take a degree of effort that picking up my dinner would not.

Honestly, the real culprit is probably my depression. It’s been up and down a lot lately, likely because of all the stress from the past few weeks, the lack of anything resembling a sleep schedule over the last month and a half, and because I don’t really have a lot to look forward to these days. Sure, I’ve got stuff, but most of it isn’t something I feel I can depend on as a “something to look forward to” given how often that stuff gets cancelled and how always I feel worse than ever when something I was anticipating falls apart. And most of it has gotten permanently canceled or just never actually materializes these days. I also spend a lot of time playing video games and then trying to figure out who I can talk to about said game, but I rarely have much of a chance to really engage with people about them. Mostly its because the person I’m talking to hasn’t played the game, but sometimes its because I mistake someone’s enthusiasm for the game for the willingness or desire to discuss a game critically, in all its successes and failures, like I did this past weekend. It’s a lot of built up excitement or enthusiasm that then has no outlet and winds up turning on me.

I’ve been doing better on sleep, though. I might have gotten messed up a couple weeks ago, due to lengths I went to drive to and from my gradnmother’s funeral in one incredibly exhausting day when I was already exhausted the moment I woke up, but I’ve been working on getting back into healthy sleep habits. I’ve worked on a stable wake up time, on a stable go-to-sleep time, on not keeping myself awake when I’m exhausted, and on not keeping myself awake just to avoid whatever the next day is going to bring. Despite that, I had my first-ever episode of sleep paralysis this past weekend, complete with a sensed presence. I didn’t see anything, but that could just be because I was facing the wrong direction to see anything when it happened (I had my body turned to lay on my left side and the presence was on top of my abdomen, on my right sid). It was freaky, but I managed to bust out of it pretty quickly and rationally knew that what I was feeling on my abdomen was actually just my arm draped over me. It just felt weird because my perioproception wasn’t working and my body was still asleep even if my consciousness was not. Once I busted out, I was able to turn over and go back to sleep without too much of an issue, but it was certainly mildly upsetting. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before outside of the rare nightmare where I’m trying to flee or otherwise take action when something is coming for me but my body refuses to respond quickly enough. The two sensations felt exactly the same, though, so I bet they’re related. I remember reading once that your body turns off the ability to move so your brain can safely dream without sending you flying around your bed, so it would make sense that both things, sleep paralysis and those nightmares, are the same thing presenting in different ways.

Like everything else, my stress levels are improving, but they’re nowhere near where I need them to be. I mean, I gave myself a day off for my birthday in order to rest up and most of that rest potential got spoiled by the news that my grandmother was going to pass any day. It’s difficult to enjoy yourself and your time off from work when all you can do is think about your estranged family, mortality, and how much you just can’t deal with it all right then. It was not a restful weekend, and it was extra frustrating because I gave up a week’s overtime to have that restful weekend and I wound up missing out on two full weeks of it, thanks to that and then the funeral. And while I was able to get my usual overtime last week, it cost me a great deal since I was already exhausted. Plus, I had a weird schedule for that week since I’d agreed to take one of my friends from Madison to the town they live in after they came back from an international trip, which was easily going to be three hours of driving. In a normal week, it’s not that big of a deal to move around some hours or just take a bit less overtime to help a friend out. Last week, I needed my full overtime amount to make up for two skipped weeks in a row and I was already struggling thanks to my stress levels and disrupted sleep schedule following the funeral, so it was a rough experience. I was fully just depressed and exhausted by the time I finally left work on Friday and wound up staying up later than I wanted to because I just zoned out and made Baldur’s Gate 3 characters until I was dozing off over the controller. I loved seeing my friend, though. That part was pretty nice, even if the rest of the day sucked. I just am not in great shape these days, mentally speaking, and the demands of last week definitely didn’t help.

This week… I’m going to try to take it easy. I’m going to try to leave by seven every day, no matter what. Make sure I’ve eaten by eight. Be in bed around midnight. Read and invest in myself and just try to find some kind of internal peace while I work through this wave of depression. Get some sleep and keep up my exercise routine and try to find something I can do with my friends, online or in-person, to help me push through this. Or at least let me come into vocal or physical contact with another person whose company I enjoy. Not that I dislike most of my coworkers most days. I just don’t get to really be myself with them. I need to be around people who make me feel comfortable enough to let down my guard a bit and relax. I’m just running really low on those sorts of people these days.